


we will rise above all the ash

by alesford



Series: our family of choice [16]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, F/F, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 01:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15474141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesford/pseuds/alesford
Summary: everybody thinks about family a little differently. the scooby gang is no different. here are six brief character studies on thoughts on family.part of 'our family of choice au' but can also stand alone





	we will rise above all the ash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vythian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vythian/gifts).



**we will rise above all the ash**

_so bright, the flames burned in our hearts,  
_ _that we found each other in the dark.  
_ _like beasts out in the wilderness  
_ _we are fighting to survive and convalesce._  
_\- ‘we found each other in the dark’ by city and colour_

 

-

 

**Nicole**

 

Nicole knows the importance of a found family should never be underestimated. She knows this. She knows what it means to be taken in by strangers, accepted and made to feel like you could belong some day. 

 

The thing about family, your _real_ family — the ones that hold tight to you and love you with everything they have through the good times and the bad — is that you protect them. You protect them in the best ways that you know how.

 

Sometimes this means shielding them from harm, figuratively or literally. Sometimes it means raising your metaphorical fists while standing at their side. Other times, it means something a lot like sacrifice.

 

Because you do everything to protect your family. Even if it means cutting the rope.

 

-

 

**Waverly**

 

Waverly had a family. A family made up of a drunken father, an absent mother, an older sister who hated her, and another sister who left her behind. It wasn’t much of a family. How could it have been?

 

Willa was her daddy’s and Wynonna was her mama’s. And Waverly? She was no one’s.

 

But that isn’t true anymore. Because now she has Nicole and Doc and Dolls and Jeremy. Because she has her sister in her life again. Because all of them love her as much as she loves them.

 

Waverly has a family. It’s made up of the people who believe in her, who love and support her. It’s made up of the people who _matter._

 

Definitely an upgrade.

 

-

 

**Jeremy**

 

Jeremy doesn’t fit in. He never has. He’s always been the weird kid who likes science and comic books a little too much. Then he was the kid who spent most of his eleventh year in a hospital with too much metal inside him, holding him together physically if not mentally.

 

Black Badge gave him a purpose. They gave him books and lab equipment and access to things that he thought only existed in fantasy worlds. It was like his letter from Hogwarts got lost in the mail for a really long time because the stuff he got to see and do was so frigging cool.

 

He still didn’t fit in. Not even there. He was still the strange lab tech who got too excited about everything while making more pop culture references than a quipping Buffy Summers.

 

But then Black Badge was gone and he stayed. He stayed because he found his people. The kind of people that never made him feel as if he needed to fit in. Who never asked him to be something he’s not.

 

He stayed because he made a home and found a family here. From _purgatorio_ to _paradiso._

  
  
-

 

**Doc**

 

Doc has lived his long life knowing one thing for certain: an Earp will always be his weakness.

 

Wyatt was the first, surely, and most might think that Wynonna would be the next, seeing the two of them as they are. They are mistaken, of course, because the second Earp to soften his heart was a young woman behind the bar with a smile like the sun and a heart made of gold. Waverly, he knows, was the second with Wynonna soon to follow.

 

What Doc did not realize is that it is not the Earp name that troubles him so. No, it is what that name has come to mean to him, what it represents.

 

Kin.

 

No longer was it solely an Earp that made him reckless — made him _love._ Made him believe in love and redemption if not absolution.

 

He thinks of the Deputy Marshall, the peace officer, the fanboy. Of Waverly and Wynonna. Earp is not a weakness, he understands now. They stand stronger together.

 

Family.

  
-

 

**Wynonna**

 

Wynonna has never really been good at the whole family thing. She grew up with two _shining_ examples of what “love” looks like. The same goes for family. Because, _Jesus Christ_ , what family? Her mama got carted away when she was ten. She shot her daddy at twelve and lost her big sister that very same night. Plus, it wasn’t like she was a bastion of good sibling behavior when it came to Waverly. She never stepped in when Willa was being a bitch. She just stood there. She stood there and let it happen.

 

And then she left her behind. She _left._

 

So yeah. She kind of sucks at the whole family thing. She is trying, though. She wants to be better. She wants to be there for Waverly. Because Waverly deserves the love and family that she never got as a kid. She deserves so goddamn much and Wynonna… Wynonna knows that she can’t give that to her all by her lonesome.

 

Except she isn’t alone anymore. She doesn’t have to shy away from her friends just because the voice in her head that sounds a lot like mama tells her that she’s become soft and weak for an heir. What does she know about being the heir, anyways?

 

She couldn’t do this — she _wouldn’t_ — without all these screw-ups at her side. They’re her family now and Waverly’s, too. Doc, Dolls, Nicole, Jeremy. Somewhere along the way, she thinks, she started to learn what that word really means. What love really looks like.

 

It’s this.

 

-

 

**Dolls**

 

Xavier Dolls knows what family is. He understands what it means to surround yourself with the people that you can trust to watch your back. The kind of people who would march into the belly of the beast for you. More often than not, it isn’t blood that bonds.

 

It’s reciprocity and the mutual decision to choose each other. Those are the most powerful connections. That is what makes a family.

 

He knows what family is because he served in Afghanistan. He had good men and women watching his six as he watched theirs. He held their hands when they died and he carried them home, as far as they needed to go. They would have done the same for him. Of this, he is certain.

 

Our families of choice are important, he knows. From parents who cherish you to friends who choose you and love you in spite of every reason they shouldn’t.

 

Because if Dolls knows one thing to be true in their absurd world of monsters and magic and mayhem, it’s that these people are his family.

 

And family saves each other.

 

They saved him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So there were some feels with that most recent episode. I think we're all still feeling a thing. Or a lot of things.
> 
> Emily kept tweeting out #Choices leading up to the airing, and there is so much entangled with that single word in the context of "When You Call My Name" -- and in the broader sense of the show itself. Because as much as I love the gay and the cray, I stay for the relationships, the friendships, all the brotps ever. Even the rivalries and enmities. They mean something.
> 
> And guys, if this series hasn't made my stance clear on this subject, found families are the most important ones. Our families of choice.
> 
> Pour one out for Dolls and wish Shamier the best of luck on this next stage of his journey.
> 
>  
> 
> This fic is gifted to Vythian and all the folks that keep me company late into the night, rambling about Wynonna Earp and everything else. Thanks, friend.


End file.
